I have no problem with police agencies using the tracking system for fighting crime and I can myself vouch for that system as it helped me once. By finding a stolen car the police were able to get a hold of my stolen purse and notify me even before I had noticed it was gone. So in that effort, it works. The problem is with private use and the data bases they create so here we are again back to data selling once more. Data selling is screwing up everything from license plate to healthcare to anything anyone wants to sell. Have data in someone’s pocket is like having cash to burn anymore and it’s getting obnoxious, all for the sake of targeted advertising for a lot of it. It’s gone from personalization to being a menace. I could care less at this point on targeted ads and would much rather return to doing a search at this point compared to the hassles it gives me. It’s not worth it. Besides sometime I don’t’ know what I want until I see it or an image.

Private companies are screening to provide data for police agencies, and that’s ok but they also sell the data to anyone else with a buck, that’s not ok. That data gets matched and resold. I understand people need it to repossess cars and so on and those who buy that information should also have to register, again so we know who in the hell they are. Public agencies should not be sharing the data with anyone who wants to buy it. Your license plate could be matched with other data bases and who knows what kind of data base would be constructed and sold then? We need to know who the parties are selling and buying this data.

The lawmaker bill is ok but again like most laws today, it’s not enough. Again it’s the secondary matching and selling of your data that is the danger here it is becoming more common place all the time. Look at this link below with Verizon and their data tracking to sell data. So you have the private company with your license plate and Verizon tracking on your cellphone…hmmmm

So look, with just facial recognition data base connect to your license plate data, what big complete file of data can be created to sell when queried together…again..consumers need to know who the data sellers are and what kind of data they sell and to who. For all we know the private license plate folks could have a subsidiary or sister company that does some kind of other data base mining, merely separated by a door in an office for example. I swear with in data in hand anymore and lack of regulation it’s like corporate cash to burn. BD

If you've been behind the wheel lately, odds are your trip has been tracked by small cameras called "automated license plate readers."

They're often mounted on law enforcement vehicles and street poles, and used by police to catch criminals. But in California, lawmakers are debating whether this technology needs restrictions to protect privacy.

More than 70 percent of the nation's police departments use this technology to find vehicles associated with crimes.

"If a vehicle comes into the area, it's instantly recognized," said Captain Ed Palmer with the University of Southern California Department of Public Safety.

But now, private companies have built their own databases, and are using these cameras, too -- cruising streets and parking lots and sharing billions of hits of data not just with law enforcement, but with anyone willing to pay, including private investigators, insurance companies, and lenders looking to repossess vehicles.

"They can track you around the country through these databases," said California State Senator Jerry Hill.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.